So here's how the weekend is going: President Donald Trump just confirmed that the United States has started "major combat operations" in Iran. In a video posted to his Truth Social account, Trump said the objective is "to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people." That's the official line.

But wait, there's more. Earlier on Saturday, Israel decided to get ahead of things with what it's calling a preventive missile attack against Iran. The Israeli defense minister confirmed the strike, and Reuters reports that afterward, Israel's military turned on air raid sirens across the entire country. Why? To "prepare the public for the possibility of missiles being launched toward Israel" in retaliation. So they're basically saying, "We hit them, and now we're waiting for them to hit back."

This whole situation didn't come out of nowhere. The U.S. had been assembling a "vast fleet" of fighter jets and warships in the region, trying to pressure Iran into a deal over its nuclear program. Apparently, that pressure campaign has now escalated into actual combat.

(This is a developing story.)